Right place

like

What was yours Waterloo Bridge

here you go on

one way

or ride right.

This is clear for you

Would you run

through to the right to realize why

New York City.

This is the only place.

What did you hear wrong.

So that's

what you

want to do up for

this to start.

If.

You can everybody fairly
well thank you George.

Thank you very much.

Of course.

Thank you to the times of eventually.

Well thank you Tom.

I'm sorry you couldn't be here
tonight barely is on vacation but

thank you to Georgia Tech for having me.

So it's a privileged.

To be appointed to this position
of the ventilator chair and

I am looking forward to many semesters
year of productive collaboration and

designing process as you say.

Tonight.

I don't want to stray too far from
what we normally do which is really to

overload you with images in a single
sitting because in the end that kind of

like instant haptic download of knowledge
through images actually is quite powerful

and listening to me talk is usually not as
interesting as the images themselves so

in such a way I'm here to kind of cure
rate this sequence of images and but

I will talk a little bit a bit
more maybe than I normally

do about some of the kind of beginnings
of projects because that is what we

are focused on in the studio
that we're doing here right now.

And what I say here is

the question about origination in
process is a very very fundamental and

powerful thing which I think all of
you should intuitively understand.

But I think many people in the in
the practice in the entire industry

don't always get close to
the origination of a project.

And often don't even understand how it
came to be and I have to say in many ways

my knowledge is equally limited
of the projects I worked on.

I mean in the end where the facade
engineering consultant occasionally

the architect.

Sometimes the engineer but and
occasionally the builder as well but

in all of that the the.

The stories that precede you know
the actual involvement of our firm or

me as an individual are many years
off you know there's questions about.

Well I won't go into the list of.

Actually.

Right now because let's just talk about
the beginnings in the end what do we have

now we have.

The desire to build the need to
build really fundamental and

we have organizations.

That ultimately aggregate resources and
decide to build.

It's like a million year history.

So the question for

me is when we get invited to look at
a project who are we working for you know

who are the first people that actually
had the idea to build this building.

I mean is it a commercial developer.

Is the motive to sustain their company and
to ensure profitability and

to carry on and
do they have other agendas.

Is it a non-governmental institution
is it a government is it a.

Agitator you know is it
you know there's like so

many others as many organizations as
you can imagine they're all of course.

Driven by individuals because in
the world of architecture there is

nothing else right.

What is it.

There's people.

People people people people people.

So if you're not Mr and
people it's a wrong industry.

You're building with people
in your building for

people and everyone is unique.

So they're in kind of like is the kind of
crux of the Genesis and you say OK well am

I going to be very interested in who I am
working with and for and for what reasons.

Well this is pretty fundamental I mean it
gets very sophisticated very quickly and

we start kind of normalizing the entire
world within which we work we understand.

Yes we have owner raps and

we have construction managers we
have funding agencies we have like

you know the entire established
industry of how project gets built and

I'm not going to try and simplify
that I think you all know that it.

It's all out there and
it's wild and complex and

the building industry is
real it's a real mess.

It's as complex as humanity is complex.

And you should understand first principles
that like every culture has its own

preferences in terms of how to build and
what to build and we all know that I mean

construction techniques are different in
different places for all sorts of reasons.

And you know that's that's what we engage
in but I think I mean many people I work

with don't always appreciate that they're
not always asking those questions or

their world view not to say that
they're narrow but their experience or

what they've been harder with They've been
informed with is is is maybe a band with

that's as big but maybe it actually kind
of like has a kind of an amoeba type shape

of experience that people people know what
they know they don't know everything.

And one thing that I am
privileged to have experience and

I kind of design my life and
practice that way is were extraordinarily

focused not just on the question of
process but the extent the frame.

What is the entire cultural
technological economic framework

within which we can operate and
you know that you don't know it.

And of course recognizing that is one of
the first things that's really important

so that you're you're kind of
curiosity should be sparked like all

the time you should be constantly kind
of pursuing a kind of question about how

does this happen.

How does that happen and what are we going
to do here would have been do there.

OK but what comes down to it and now is
really really important and actually going

to borrow this in a sense from my
buddy Josh is that it's tough for him.

This is the question of an agenda.

And that's and the gender from
every single point of view.

Because let's just say
you have a individual and

organization that has accumulated
resources in the world.

It has an agenda a function and
it now has the desire to build and

wants to manifest its values in built
form so it can pursue its goals.

Now whatever.

Or individual is the world.

That's a that's a true fact it's just like
a universal desire otherwise they wouldn't

bother building buildings and maybe it's
a bit cynical but of course you should all

recognize that in my view the built
environment is a history of winners and

losers because people that basically
have money build buildings people that

don't have money don't build buildings so
your entire built environment is an entire

vision based on a power structure now
that power structure is not monolithic.

We all know that it can
be incredibly fragmented.

But it's still about building in patterns
that are created by an aggregation

of resources.

So now the architect as the individual.

I'm a huge proponent of
collaboration collaboration

is is a beautiful wonderful essential
necessary thing back I ninety five

percent of everything is good and
that evolves comes out of collaboration.

But it's collaboration between individuals
and you all know if you've ever been

in a kind of competitive collaborative
environment if you don't bring it.

Well the next person across the table from
me is not really going to collaborate with

you because they don't think
you're worth their time.

So this is a question about competency and
there's a question then about

your agenda as an individual
architect even as an individual.

I mean it's got the word architect you're
out there as a person you have your own

values your experience you may
have very formed convictions

about certain things in the world but
other things you may not.

You may be very open and very easy and

you may be very technically minded or
you may be very adaptive.

In terms of moving things forward.

But at the same time you may actually
be quite strident You may have

convictions of experience you
had the convictions of religion

you had the conviction the politics.

You may have the convictions of what is
right and what is wrong in every kind

of social justice sort of manner and
you may pursue that agenda and

you may say projects like the one on
the screen are totally responsive.

Well a nightmarish and
are about propaganda and

you'd never ever ever
want to be a part of it.

Now that's a position that you should and
maybe can take depending on

where you stand in the world because for
every single project you work on.

So now the role of the individual and
their vision.

Eventually as you know accrues a kind
of cultural currency to it and

we talk about famous architects.

Why is an architect famous Why is
someone you know architects we

kind of like this and
French my disenfranchisement of power and

so forth but think about the fact
that many architects in the world.

You know clients call them up and
say look I've got a billion dollars

to spend on a mega complex do
you want to spend my money

like that is a huge amount of
responsibility even a lot of hedge fund

guys don't actually get that much money
to play with depending on the project.

You know you got to be a really good
funny money managers start actually

looking after billions of dollars so.

The amount of cash that actually flows
through the construction industry is

gigantic.

I mean I hear anecdotally it's like
three trillion dollars or something.

So there's like a lot of money
moving around you just need to get

a piece of it but
now like I'm going to invoke a name here

is a guy named Andrew climber
a mentor to me for my class but.

He's he's an owner rep he's got a company
in New York called parrot's group and

Andy had a contract in the background but

he's a very very kind of savvy cultural
player and he was one of the guys and

by his time Krantz to hire
Frank Gehry to build build out.

So he's got a pretty good pedigree
in terms of architect selection and

what he does is he builds teams and
he builds teams basically goes out

clients call him up and
they say look OK I'm an institution.

I got this I got I need these
new how do I get this done.

And so now the whole dance about
selecting architects and their teams.

Is of course a tremendously complex and
delicate cultural process.

Yes.

Sometimes it's like it's my best
buddy you got the job right.

That's one way the next thing
is like you know longstanding

relationships where people of all you
know you know over time to build trust.

They watch each other's back and
you know that's probably what's most

common which is underpins
the kind of whole referral model.

And then there's a kind
of you know search model.

You know where you're actually
going out into the world and

trying to find who do I need who I want.

You know whose vision is actually going
to resonate with me and you hear these

stories where you know people select
architects for all sorts of reasons.

Sometimes it explodes and implodes
sometimes it actually is such a resounding

success you ever wonder how
it could have been otherwise.

But that the essence of team
building is is real it's

really important and it goes down to the
root of everything that we are culturally.

I mean if you get a job and

like I mean you know there's
a big project in Korea they're

rebuilding the downtown of Seoul the young
son international business district.

It's like you know one thousand
buildings seventy million square feet.

Whatever it is you know and and the
architects involved which includes read

the piano and K.P. and also am and Daniel
Levy and then the others affectionately.

And this is kind of a reflection of
this kind of cultural thing which is

that they call themselves a kids' table.

And the kids' table is racks and
dark angles and.

T.V. and as a toad.

You know you kind of get the picture.

But you know none of us really consider
that the kids' table I mean these guys

are all like at the top of the game
buildings protecting the buildings but

in the kind of hierarchy of the industry.

You know they're not in their sixty's and
seventy's and

they're not necessarily being given them
a kind of mega projects as of right.

So there is this kind of you
know process it goes on.

So my.

Next point is the relationship
of that relationship of that

that fundamental reality that
we live in which is so massive.

It's really like the air we breathe is
the on the WE ALL KNOW THE on below

this kind of late become the thing in
the last fifteen years maybe twenty years.

You know ever since nine eleven.

Security has become such a massive issue
as a kind of mediator between questions

about security not security it goes back
to like architecture a thousand years ago.

There's this kind of huge role that
they are below is playing whether it's

kind of on the low permit or

mitigation whether it's actually hardening
whether it's actually transparency or

not etc etc There's so many complexities
regarding security now but they all

inevitably redound to the On The Low So
fifteen percent of twenty percent of

all of our projects now are all hardened
blast resistant security clearances.

I mean a guy like yours truly now has
to get Canadian government security

clearance because we work on the Canadian
parliament so we have plans.

We know what their blast requirements are.

If we work for Homeland Security.

You know it's got to get checked out up
there was it so it's a serious business.

Now just to play in that arena.

So if you want to do on globe work that
entire cultural framework about security.

Is now present and
obviously the recent attacks

in Benghazi of become such a kind of
central question about who failed.

You know like well they they had
a lower level of primitive security and

of course it was breached and
it was a tragedy.

So these are real things and they actually
go right up very quickly to the top

in terms of defining what you're
going to do Environment course

we all know environment is
absolutely the thing all the.

All the codes are being tightened up
as they should be first principles

design is improving design tools or
improving general awareness of litigation

pertaining to failures due to poor
design are increasing therefore every.

It is kind of trying to
get their acting gear.

All of that redounds to the anvil
of integrated media the idea of

branding and signage and revenue
generation and all the stuff that's coming

from the Omble Well now it's got
to do all of these things and

then we've got you know what do we have on
top of that you know we have integrated

power generation we have photovoltaic for
solar thermal we have micro winter buds.

You know we have a plethora of kind
of you know sensor technology we have

questions about architecture.

We have formal questions.

That's kind of like the big one and
the thesis today that I'm seeing and

like most practices is that you
can have your cake and eat it too.

Meaning you can make anything
look like anything and

make it perform the kind of narrative of
wear it on your sleeve performative design

where you have to justify the formalised
that it's based on some sort of

trumped up technical analysis usually your
technical analysis is one dimensional or

two dimensional or
three dimensional it best.

And eventually it yields to the twenty
other factors that you have to resolve

that your client saying actually
you know I hired you because you

have this kind of formal agenda.

And I won't name architects but

you can identify people however
from Sibley formalised agenda.

But those building still work.

So you know people understand out
there they're going to say hey I'm

going to buy my cultural identity
through this individual or

company that has a kind of a branded and
recognized presence culturally and

then they're going to build a team that
team can include people like me and

includes all the kind of various
technical engineers around the world and

we're working on the Gary version
of the Barclays arena project.

I think there was no less than about
forty technical consultants listed on

the title block.

I mean it was just like I mean it's
three separate lighting can see.

It's not just one.

There's like three three specialists
on guy who did this that and

you know one guy you did
integrated media stuff.

Anyway.

So coming back to this studio that we're
trying to do here and it's a tall order.

I understand kind of like three and
a half months but

it is a design studio it's
an integrated design studio were

ultimately the teams are basically
working in collaboration with each other.

There's obviously going to be some kind
of natural collaboration and or tension

regarding questions about authorship and
which direction the design is going to go

but ultimately if they don't have
the conviction and I hope you all do.

Relative to your reading of sight your
reading of specific program the fact that

the projects are real and
in a kind of real circumstance that your

agenda as it comes to
your view of the project

funneled through
the constraints of reality.

Ultimately is the kind of tension
that yields some expression for

the on below and the on the up as we
know is now massively cultural and

you know we're dealing with kind of.

High value targets like the Brooklyn
Bridge a context because it implies a kind

of historical responsibility relative
to what you're designing and

every one of the room that they
mediately looked at a project might say

my god that's so irresponsible No
never do that or that's interesting.

At this moment and it kind of
raises questions and tensions and

we're seeing that globally right
now there's this kind of obviously

in the recession there is a huge
push towards adaptive reuse and

replenishing buildings and reclining and
so that's actually going on and

then actually that kind of ramp
up against the entire dialogue or

you know questions about heritage and
preservation which many of

the tenets of preservation are actually
you know quite complex and.

And provocative and it's ties into a kind

of current dialogue which is generally
related to the manufacture of heritage.

Meaning I am going to fund
my vision of history and

I'm going to erase your history.

So this kind of selective preservation and
or demonstration this kind of willful

putting building its into Stace is versus
letting them evolve and or deteriorate.

These are huge questions and I would
say just so you get a sense of it that

represents about twenty five to
thirty percent of our work as well.

So the huge amount of work that everyone
is doing is actually always a kind of.

Adaptive reuse or

extension or repurchasing of
some sort of host building.

So I'm going to stop with
the preface there and

I'm going to run through
a series of projects and

I'm not going to explain all of the images
as I go there kind of in a rational

sequence which is usually design intent
information artifacts whether they're

renderings models drawings
analyses of the design process and

then generally we morph into what
we always do which is mock ups

some sort of empirical assessment or
verification of the process.

Always funded by clients and
always a very complex process to

actually decide even what to
mock up why to mock it up.

Who's going to market up the question
about politics and procurement and

location and all these questions start
to kind of a rise in the mock up phase.

And then that evolves into early stages of
construction of course the actual final

construction and
then the final finished images and

then a smattering of beautiful
architectural photographs.

Usually in our collection provided
by you in Bonn is that tackler.

So.

China Central Television.

You know.

This is an amazing organization.

You may be aware or
not aware that in a kind of.

Very diversified media industry
as we have in the West.

You have all forms of production at

different stages there's lots of
individual production companies and.

You know there's just a very
large dance of people.

Collaborating in a free enterprise
environment to actually produce content.

Even in a place like Canada
where you have the C.B.C.

or you have B.B.C. there's still a kind
of massively diverse media environment.

There is similarly in China as well but
C.C.T.V. in houses everything.

So this building which is in total
aggregate six million square feet

has all the means of production.

The base of the building is actually a two
hundred twenty five by two hundred twenty

five meter by thirty meter deep plinth
filled with production studio in a kind of

grid like format and all the broadcaster
Dio's rise up in the body of the tower and

then the top of the towers
fell administrative offices.

I was explaining to
students here earlier that

one interesting thing about the entire
master plan for the building is that

the second building the television
cultural center the one that had the fire.

Was actually separated out from the main
building because the main building is all

actually secure functions.

It has a secure perimeter
the building is locked down.

It's actually very difficult to get in and
out of that project.

So the Performing Arts Center.

The press release facilities the
conference facility and the Mandarin Hotel

recently put across the street because
it couldn't be secured in the same way.

So there is actually and complete
recognition from security standpoint

the buildings are going to be separated.

So C.C.T.V.

started out in the kind of model phase
as a diagonal grid structure with their.

Rectangular curtain wall on top of it and
to make a long story short the entire

project is all two hundred thirty seven
meters of the facade which is one million

square feet one hundred thousand square
meters of facade is all blast resistant.

And this was being designed remember
just a year after nine eleven.

So there was a huge sensitivity to that
I mean obviously this structure has

massive redundancy in it.

It's a seismic for category of course for
the structural engineer for

the base building that
a spectacular job and

the building wasn't code compliant it
actually had to be go through a kind of

a national level peer review and
neither was the facade code compliant.

It was unprecedented in
many of its outer aspects.

So to make this brief.

The curtain wall is absolutely
formally designed at

the beginning because well let's
just say that you know this guy hero

is amazing at Oma basically did a billion
subtraction on a model canted the walls by

six degrees and that became so beautiful
that I wanted to say yeah that's it.

And then all the kind of narrative about.

And he skyscraper continuous loop in
hand circulation started to evolve but

everyone knew.

It's such an iconic graphic.

Conic sort of so the way that that that's
what won the competition I mean so

cities like yes that image is
synonymous with who we are and

from a identity and branding standpoint
let's build that building and it seems so

over the top and so ambitious that
that ambition also resonates.

Of course that ambition came home to roost

when they burned down their own building
and twenty of them are now in jail.

So he recently goes so far.

There are some checks and balances.

So the Giant chevrons that
you're looking at on the facade

right now are sacrificial
steel blast screens.

So there are eight hundred millimeters
wide there three hundred fifty millimeters

deep and they have a three hundred
fifty millimeter crumple zone where

if you have a blast of that.

They go plastic and they don't impose
a load on to the diagonal braces and

the columns in the building
are all concrete and cased and

the diagonal braces are not they
can't be for ductile any reasons and

therefore they can suffer from a blast
event whereas the columns won't.

Whereas we in this building.

We have a one million square foot
overhang as a permanent course meaning

some of the loads going through
the braces are close to column loads.

And when you basically push on one of
those columns in a permanent way and

you hit it with a blast load.

Nothing can save them they
will fail they were all fail.

So depending on the size
of your blast event.

You could have a catastrophic failure.

So there had to be a sacrificial blast
meaning the building which meant that

occurred more now had actually expressed
this when you see the size of the steel

that's in that curtain Well you'd say
that it doesn't look like normal steel.

So it's this piece of steel here.

That's facade steel there
is the diagonal brace.

The second impact is that.

Arab sensibly identified the entire
lateral system of the building as

a two storey nodal arrangement.

So you actually have.

Floors in the building which we
refer to as non diaphragm floors and

floors that we refer to
as diaphragm floors.

So the diaphragms are not only
concentric with the actual.

Diagonals on the columns.

And what happens is that every
second floor is actually released.

So when the building starts moving it
actually starts moving like this every

second floor is moving differentially and
the interest of floor movements don't

follow normal kind of like each over X.
kind of relationship and so

the bottom line is you can't
hang a curtain on this building.

So it's a problem.

So what do we do we
basically build a diaphragm.

So every diamond is its own locked
up steel grid hanging from its

local Chevron So these are all individual
the kind of the tension support.

Did window walls in every discreet
location going up on the project so

that as the floors move back and forth
the curtain was actually locked in place.

It has interstitial when load restraints
going up and down the building but

it doesn't have its release laterally and
it's released vertically.

So that curtain wall on a high rise like
this had never been built before and so it

had to go through a kind of national level
peer review in order to actually execute.

So then we moved to a kind
of like a mock up face.

This is the scale of
the mock up it's the largest

performance market we've
done which is in this case

eighteen meters by twenty three meters
by three point five meters deep.

You can start to see the size
of the kind of steel and

remember this piece is actually
spanning clear from here to here.

There are about a thirteen metre span.

So you can see inside the curtain wall is
actually a super slender aluminum unitized

curtain wall which has all the mechanics
of a normal unit as curtain wall but

it doesn't have any of
the spanning capacity.

So it actually has these intermittent
bolts that span on to a steel million

which acts as the structural hanger and
the steel million also imparts

the kind of stronger blast resistance
to this particular curtain wall.

This is a seismic wracking mockup.

These are one of fifty different
visual mock up studying the for

it on the glass panels.

And then this is a scale structural model
that was actually done for Arabs work.

The primary building structure and
they made out a copper and

actually tried to simulate the overall
structural reforms of the building.

Now to site so that piece of steel you're
looking at there is a facade steel.

I know there's a lot of buildings in
the world that have kind of diagonal

grid expressions either
as over casing like the.

The Hancock in Chicago or like
the Bank of China by day in Hong Kong.

But they either trace as a representation
of the primary structure.

But they normally don't have
a kind of performance or

Also many of those buildings.

It's kind of like a metal representation
of the structure because you start to

insulate and waterproof the building and

you could have done
something else actually.

And we all know like even in paise
building the grid on the outside is so

manicured and perfect and
beautiful it actually doesn't correlate

exactly to the primary structure
behind which has its own logic.

Even on C.C.T.V.

it doesn't there's actually a divergence
at the corners where we bring the curtain

wall to it's kind of own nodal geometry at
the edge corners where the structure has

to be notably concentric to its own
structure and there's this kind of weird

moments where they actually begin
to kind of slightly separate.

So here's for example non diaphragm floor.

There's a diagram for
you can instantly see how it's working

it's like this gigantic
reveal around the brace so

they're totally separated very immediate
and here's current more installation

big diaphragms going up steal millions
being installed top down right.

So you know it's being hung.

I mean sometimes when they
something's built in a certain way.

You know how it's actually working.

It's kind of satisfying.

But I'm willing to turn that
on its head in a minute.

We're so into baroque work it's OK with me

just so
you know it's a piece of trivia here.

The Two Towers were actually
structurally separated at birth and

the plant was built separately until
they actually connected the towers of

the top they didn't come back to
actually stitch up the bottom.

Just because of the way the movements
happened in the building.

So it's basically

a hybrid stealing and aluminum
composite semi unitized curtain wall.

On a six degree slope.

You can see the way
the the steel is moving up

ahead of the millions and then the glass
cassettes are actually coming in.

Afterwards very direct.

These are even been shot.

There's actually during construction they.

They had a promotional.

Mapping of media on to the facade.

This was all projected there
was actually many designs done

to do a full integrated media or
shot of the building which may yet happen.

But it was decided that it was not
sensible to integrate it into the glass

as you're coupling two technologies where
one is going to fail before the other

Another one is going to be dated so
the ideas you can just retrofit any pixel

of the building with its own
media Ray after the fact and

then address it as and where you want.

It was an interesting problem
though that the the C.C.T.V.

building itself in some ways was so

direct because the form was always locked
in immediately a competition stage.

It's not one of those buildings we're
actually struggling with the form over and

over and over again actually struggling
with the kind of technical and

is that a resolution of something that
is actually quite well defined whereas

the building next to it was actually much
more complicated the television cultural

center project a lot of this was actually
really changing there is hundreds and

hundreds of study models done in some ways
there was more excitement in the process

designing that building.

Which of course has all been compromised
in some way by the the fire but it's.

All now under reconstruction and

the cladding is almost one
hundred percent done now.

For the T.C.C. building and Mandarin I
believe is taking over the project and

he should be finished believe by
the end of two thousand and thirteen.

I think for operations.

So here's some views on the interior.

We had a chance to go through the building
just a few months ago before it

was handed over formally to
try to Central Television.

It's quite nice at night.

It's very interesting interior
because the scale of the structure is

beyond anything that you would expect on
a kind of like normal rational standpoint.

This kind of strange horizontal
slice of this exterior thing.

Take note of this particular column here.

This column is not concrete and
case because it has no buckling problems.

You notice the slope.

This is sloping on
the back of the building

this column is permanently in tension.

That's not a column.

For it and repeats.

This is the lobby.

Here is your typical curtain wall with
your motorized smoke Mance this is

the kind of structural connection of
the million to the steel die a grid so

there's your primary steel brace here and

there is your diagram would steal
your sacrificial glass crane.

And then this is the two story public
loop space right where you can get up and

look into the glass windows that
look down there quite nice.

The largest diameter piece of glass you
can do like this is about ten feet and

ten feet was considered just a little bit
too small so we had to cut it in half.

But the owner also wanted
the beam down the middle because

psychologically it felt
more secure like it

told you that there was something there as
opposed to just having the circular void.

Even at that people are quite You
see one standing there you know.

But of course there
are those who are brave.

So this is looking down on to
the kind of garden on the roof scape

of the two towers.

It's quite.
Spectacular interior

that creates by this structure
that grid by the way of course

is totally three dimensional it wraps
all the way through the building.

It's not just a two
dimensional facade grid.

And so I've included a few pictures of
the television cultural center as well.

But not the kind of process.

It's.

The construction of it was kind
of spectacular was more beautiful

than the actual final design.

This is a also done as a semi
unitized stick building

the real sadness here

was that of course we wanted a single
sheet of glass for each hotel room.

And the Chinese glass
industry wasn't quite at

the point in the owner certainly didn't
want to bring in glass from Germany.

So we had to accept the kind
of vertical division.

So these are all full Did zinc.

This was the big compromise
on the owner's side zinc

eventually proved to be the most
durable possible material for

a long term facade like this and it patina
it out to a very natural beautiful grey.

Stainless steel would actually stain and
would stain over time and corrode.

But there's no domestic manufacturers ink.

Zinc oil has to come from either France or
Germany for the architectural world and

eventually they accepted that.

So the coil was delivered from Germany and

was fabricated by a local Chinese
fabricator in south China.

So they got a lot of press yet but

what's got the wrong kind of press but
eventually it will.

And it's I should mention
also since I'm in Atlanta.

There is a absolutely
intentional ode to Portman.

In this project.

This is an atrium hotel where of course
the belly here is manifested on the inside

of the building essentially it's like
the depth of a single hotel room and

then a single loading corridor and
all the single logic orders on the in.

Side are open to the atrium space and

they're all kind of pulling
back in as you actually go up.

It's almost no one's been in there yet but

it's just a mind blowing
spectacular interior.

So changing scales radically.

This project.

Jane's carousel.

This is built by Jane volunteers and David
relentless her husband and their son.

Jed voluntas who own the real
estate development company two

trees in Brooklyn full disclosure
they're also my landlord so.

We had you a good job for them.

Originally back when the area was not yet
so gentrified

David volunteers who wanted to build this
thing here this gigantic cantilevered.

Hotel over the East River which never got

approval it just died everyone kind
of thought it was the wrong thing.

But eventually you know the forces

that be the Brooklyn Heights
association and so forth.

Lobbied for taking out all of
the industrial sheds along the waterfront

hiring Michael them Vulcan
bird to do a larger plan for

what is now going to be the.

One of the largest new parks in all of
New York City this piece is now completely

done that piece is completely done that
piece down there is two thirds done and

all of this is now being
advanced that once and

also done as well so
holding off on the economic side.

The villain to says who own fifty
percent of the entire Dumbo area

decided well they bought for
twenty five years ago.

James Blunt is an artist and

twenty five years ago she bought
a vintage carousel from Ohio.

Which was originally made in
one nine hundred twenty two and

she brought it back.

She put it in a warehouse and

over twenty five years with
her friends they restored it.

Every single thing.

It is.

The most Mint quality carousel in America
it's spectacular and they been wanting

to bequeath it to the city of New York
which is also not that easy to do so.

They made a deal with the Bloomberg
administration they basically

offered to build the entire pavilion and
install the carousel for

a price tag that eventually turned out
to be close to a million dollars And

they also spent another three and
a half million dollars.

To actually finish that part
of Brooklyn Bridge Park and

then they gave it endowment.

In perpetuity to support
the operation of the carousel and

its management and they actually now
have a concession also to run it.

So it's being run in
the manner that they expect.

So they hired a new girl to come back and
instead of building a giant hotel

cantilevering over the East River they
asked him to design a carousel enclosure.

And so this was the first game.

So movie.

The only movie I have
in this presentation.

So that kind of seems sort
of reasonable just build

a steel structure put it on wheels and
roll it sideways.

It was considered to be dangerous.

The idea that you would
actually first of all it's.

For things that move there's kind of
increment in risk of things that move.

You know and then when they fail
the consequences of failure

kind of increase so part of our job is
to always kind of like understand what

are the consequences of that and
what's reasonable.

So this went pretty far along until it
was decided not to be sensible and then.

They said OK the carousel is going to be
fixed but we want to essentially open up

to complete walls of the carousel and
have it as transparent as possible and

Joan wanted the two side
walls of the carousel to be

single sheets of seventy foot long by
twenty seven foot high cast acrylic.

The.
It's like an aquarium.

Which present a certain kind of issues but
I'll get back to you and

then on the inside there's four gigantic
mega screens that basically come down and

the idea was to use the carousel
enclosure as a kind of

secondary sort of prime representation
of the carousel itself to kind of

clear reinterpretation of it which
was would have been achieved by

the light cannons on the inside
basically projecting a true analog light

onto these screens as the carousel
went around during the evening.

So at night it would turn into
kind of a pneumonic device and

every hour on the hour.

Would signal and it's quite an M.R.I. ask
actually as you can see in this rendering

this is really I think what he
intended quite scary and some ways.

To a two year old.

So that's that's kind of like the vision.

I should.

Unfortunately what went wrong with this
production idea is that the the light

cannons are so
hot they present a kind of fire hazard but

more than that they're the actual design
that would have been made was not you

all certified would taken a year
to actually get it all done and

there was still a kind of risk and in the
alternate They actually invested in a kind

of like a video projected version
of the same sort of a fact.

But then the carousel was
not really designed to

how as a kind of projectors in space where
they needed to be to get to this location.

So in a sense the concept only worked
with a kind of true analog projection of

the light.

So here's a kind of big roll down
screen so clearly they use the road and

screens are all there but
they actually use them for shading.

But there is still efforts
going on to try and

actually media ties the carousel so
to speak.

So we're going to talk about the doors for
a minute.

So we basically found aircraft hangar
doors concertina folding doors

and Switzerland.

And we decided to repurpose them
with a integrated sheet of acrylic

That was twenty seven feet high and
we invited this company of the tour to

work with us to modify their
systems to our purposes.

And that was a success.

So we have these gigantic twenty seven
foot wide seventy foot doors that

fold open and there are some
subtleties to this that aren't

in a normal aircraft hangar door like we
need a grass that has to be doors for

doors at the bottom corners so when you
have door build into a folding door

door can't have a bottom transom piece
of steel to follow it so that panel

is actually kind of strange cantilevering
down and holding a door on its side.

So there's a lot of custom engineering
that went in just to make the doors

work and of course this thing.

This became an aesthetic question.

Do they accept it.

Do they not.

They didn't want it but
eventually they said it's fine.

It will be all right.

It's kind of ending Batek
it's got some personality.

So there you go pretty effective.

But one of the questions that came up and
I'll talk about this little bit later.

Is that the Heat game even though it's
got these gigantic open doors it's

all acrylic and it's got no soul or

control in this kind of giant fifty
foot diameter skylight on it.

Well and it really is going to bake.

So from a process standpoint
this is what we do just you

guys know all the time what boards
white boards white boards white boards.

Everything gets developed in this kind of
context and then turns into these kind of

drawings but it never starts here
this is to Auntie intuitive.

This enables conversation.

It enables dialogue.

That's my big takeaways
we do that all the time

our entire office now is just covered
with white boards and boards.

We've actually recently invested in SMART
boards because of the smart boards more

boards are great for boards like where
you're actually freehand sketching on one

wall and it showing up on the other guy's
place halfway around the world magically.

On the screen and you're drawing and
they're drawing and

you're actually drawing at the same
time we can make faces at each other but

you're not actually looking at each other.

There's no video interface is
kind of like not required or

you have it's like teleconference and
smart board.

So this is the material which is four and
a half inches acrylic and

then there's a question
about the joint and so

back to the monolithic seventy
foot sheet of acrylic.

It works fine for aquariums it
works up to thirteen inches deep.

But we were asking ourselves
like well why Will Reynolds and

the poor are any Vanocur the three minute
call expires in the world not do this for

us and one of the engineers
generally informed us and

it's very very interesting because
you just would have thought of it.

Beginning which is that the thermal mass

of all of the water in the aquarium
stabilizes the temperature of the acrylic.

So even if you have air on one side
the temperatures going up and down.

It's got nothing on the water
on the other side and

these aquariums are generally generally
thermally stabilized so you don't have

walls that are actually moving two
inches sideways seasonally an aquarium.

Just doesn't happen maybe maybe they have
to retrofit the whole thing or something.

There's an issue there.

So no one would actually warranty it
they would say no we're not going

to put it outside as a wind load
resisting structure that can go from

you know freezing temperatures of
winter to hot temperatures summer

we don't know what's going to happen
we think it's going to crack and so

that came up with a discussion about
first of all the just a CLI How do you

bring it all and say how do you
weld all the panels together and

then how do you stabilize them our ground
beam and put them on roller bearings.

Because we wanted to ensure that this
whole acrylic could expand sideways and

vertically while resisting the windows
in a frameless environment and

even the question about the stiffness of
the ground beam in settlement came into

the question what happens if one of the
foundation settles goes down happened in

twenty the bearings are down and

there's a huge concentrated stress at the
middle of the acrylic and it just cracks.

The nightmare.

So anyway it was killed.

Except the fact that
they were going to have.

Multiple panels ten feet wide.

But then the question of the joint
became important he say you know

if I'm going to build these panels.

I'm not just going to accept
a joint that's made out of like

you know Dow Corning seven thousand
five silicone tool into the joint.

So the joint became a question.

See this kind of overlapping
concept joint that didn't work.

These panels by the way have
a thirteen inch clamp at the bottom

to create a moment connection and
their frame was over twenty seven feet and

they deflect three inches in and out and
under a hurricane you should be able to

move them differentially So
you have a differential of six inches so

we need a gasket that looks
good that move six inches.

Not easy.

So we talked about kind of
battles we talked about.

Silly ideas like that we talked about
kind of plates with gaskets that slide

next to each other we said hey will make
the plate chrome it'll look good and

was actually the kind of
beginning of an idea.

And then this sketch basically a flexible
flap made out of sputter coated

Boyle like sail fabric and
we said gold silver gold silver silver.

So it's over in the end.

But there's kind of crazy compatibility
of materials here it's like for

oil which is butter coated hearing to
B.H.P. tape it hearing to Velcro Velcro

developer of velcro to the B.H.P.
to distain the steel stainless steel to

silicone silicone to acrylic
We spent fifteen thousand

dollars doing a compatibility study to
demonstrate that the gasket would work.

And the Velcro was in there so
that when it does fail.

You can rip it out and
you just read through it in with okra.

See.

See volcano comes with this
kind of soft here material.

What is that we designed it here to
like what we needed to adhere to and

the amount of research that went into
talking to companies like Dow Corning and

three M. and Monsanto is not it's just to
demonstrate that the gasket could work.

And in the end it's got this kind of crazy
beautiful silvery instantly abstracting

don't even know what you're looking at
here but it's this kind of silver like.

Gasket that's just folded and
strange and we were to it is kind of

like a Terminator to ask kind of
a static looks like a liquid metal and.

We work obviously often with how you
Rashid we don't work with before and

recently he confessed that he was down
at the Carousel touching the gasket.

And I told him that his name was actually
invoked when we were designing it and

he was really flattered.

So here's the installation of the care so
acrylic with the.

Attachment here for the gasket and
for the thirteen inch bass clamps.

Slinging the panels into place.

That are done.

So the skylight.

Skylight had a bunch of crazy ideas E.T.F.
you cushions gigantic propeller geometries

Cartesian geometries you know went through
all sorts of crazy stuff and in the end.

There is a need for for
large extract fans up here and

there is a desire at the end for
by actual symmetry which for

Nouvelle was actually quite difficult to
say that that was the right answer but

eventually the idea again as a kind of
inflected mirror of the carousel structure

as something that was very pure see
the carousel post actually goes up and

this carousel doesn't have a roof.

There's a circular tension ring here
that is just overlapping the spire and

it looks like it's kind
of just yielding so

this is the kind of geometrical
indexing of the two systems and

then all the tension cables rise like
a bicycle wheel to the perimeter and

because the structure is by axial
symmetrical it basically pulls back in on

itself and obviously resolves in
a kind of very classical platonic way.

And.

I think the fact that develops off as.

Was willing to say yeah that
is actually beautiful and

that's the right answer made.

Jane and David Lynch's very very happy.

It's one of the things
that actually turned.

As a kind of really happy dialogue.

So we looked at tons of kind of
bicycle wheel structures and

different table structures.

Trying to resolve how this thing
actually works in the end that's

very elegant it was built by
glass systems in New York City

by the way I should mention that the
mirrored soffit is fifty percent or forty

percent permeable in order to invent the
air through that and actually then extract

it with the fans so even that prosody is
based on a kind of environmental design.

So bring us to the thermal question here.

We we instinctively when we kind of
looked at this thing with the very

beginning knew that it's going
to become uncomfortable.

So you just have a hot
July August day you have no wind.

It's humid out.

Even if you think it's going to vent
between with all these open doors.

It's actually not.

So we had our hands full.

We recommended it to the attendee
bring it brought in Pasco It was

hired to do all the environmental
analysis and they did a great job and

they're quick answer was simply
that under normal conditions

this thing is going to go up to
about forty eight degrees Celsius.

On a hot summer day and
with the doors closed it goes without

any assistance it goes up to
sixty five degrees Celsius.

You're just pretty hot.

So we said what do we do
air conditioning forget it.

So we collectively all came up with

stablished idea of what we said Wouldn't
this be a nice opportunity to do

a geothermal Labrinth we don't
want to do deep geothermal.

So it actually happened.

We actually did it.

Geothermal labyrinth it's
only about six feet deep.

There's an air intake that's ROOM.

Boat air comes in under low
velocity basically circulates

through the kind of foundation comes down
to a slightly cooler temperature and sixty

five degrees Fahrenheit or some of that
and then actually then comes up through

displacement cooling there's four linear
registers around the whole procedure and

there's another line underneath the
carousel itself and all that comes up and

either gets washed out through
the ceiling or it actually gets

dynamically extracted through the ceiling
to guarantee that the air flows working.

So the fans don't need
to get used very often.

So there's the drawing of it.

There's an under construction.

There is next.

The Brooklyn Bridge and
like archaeological ruin.

And then the final pictures
that's David and Jane and John.

And it's such a small thing it's had
such a massive catalytic effect.

Hala Titian's of course just
wanted to be a part of it and

they were Christine Quinn
was largely enabling it.

She's the speaker of the house and she's
probably going to be the next mayor of

New York City and there is Bloomberg and.

So there is a great press
the York Times love the whole thing.

Michelle showed up and
I love this picture here.

Just not what you'd expect but
it's it's a great project.

So I'm going to show you the sequencers
is a project we're very very proud to

be a part of the new extension
of the Museum of course are not

like adding to the Kimball proper
because no one can do that but

it's being built in Jason and
there's kind of like a link underneath.

My partner Bruce Nichols actually running
this job with pianos office on our behalf.

So I actually I'm not going to speak
to the intimacy of this project.

I'm going to run you through this kind of
sequence because it's got some fantastic

kind of process and
markup stuff that it's going on.

This is what I would hope
would happen in our studio.

One to one scale drawing
of details on the floor.

To be done in the next two weeks.

But that mark up that great.

We've done in our.

Cheapest chips.

So the whole roof is being designed as
this kind of extruded slat extruded louver

that has an integrated skylight
clerestory it's got it

integrated photovoltaic panel that's been
ordinance and who's doing the structure.

And structure has gone through many
iterations it's been kind of a tension

ductile structure it's been and
table structures and

final iteration is it's judge again tech
timber gigantic laminated timber systems.

So here's the elevation of what
we're actually going to be building.

And then this is a mock up.

So this is the kind of interior space
originally there's a rendering of course

it has travertine walls which got
nixed and turned into concrete.

It's got these large
limited timber beams with

an amazing amount of steel integration and
the whole roof has this kind of

dynamic louver system with a photovoltaic
to re fully integrated and

then we have these kind of
monumental glass walls on the side

with integrated motorized blinds fix
through the lemonade a glass fence.

So quite tricky.

So it's a bit.

So this is the kind of little place
in Italy where a lot of these

men's apparel markets get built by a local
company called the dino So they're looking

at kind of timber cladding this is
a mock up of the primary structure.

This is in decline or.

That we look for work.

That told us all gain ordinance team.

Amazing.

You know I don't know.

That's why I give a caveat ahead of time.

It's amazing.
If you're not there yet.

Sometimes there's just too much detail
to actually acquire knowledge about.

But Bruce recently put
this lecture together for

this project and I just thought it was
such a kind of spectacular sequence

of images of a very nice project that's
only going right now in the country.

So I want to kind of share it with you.

So you can see now we're
pretty far advanced.

So question about the travertine
it's an interesting decision and

I want to highlight this comes back
to this question about you know who

you are what you're doing what your
sense of material is what your agenda

what you actually want to achieve.

Because the first thought is this
is all going to be travertine and

we looked at post tension
structural travertine for

certain load bearing elements which
is what this is you're looking at and

then there is travertine facing material
on the walls of the gallery and

we went through this entire beautiful
process with Kemp along the big stone

manufacture in Italy building this
really gorgeous travertine markup

where you are basically trying
to almost eradicate joints and

if you look in this market very closely.

You see this one vertical joint line here.

And the rest of it you don't see any
evidence of the joint course there are.

But how do you detail stone like that.

How did you tell it to like one two
millimeter joints How do you actually

sand those joints.

How do you how do you
fill them in these images

here actually kind of
explain a little bit of that.

But you have to have an opinion.

First of all of what joints mean.

And the questions about scale and
question about materiality.

That's the kind of joint
that we were looking at.

And there's also a matching of the
material notice the coring of the stone in

the blocks is actually there all lined up
and matching in order to achieve this.

It looks like wallpaper.

I've been to see this mark up a company
long the for different reasons.

And I was just absolutely blown away and
after all of this runs of used his mind.

And felt it was too sentimental.

That's my words not his words
probably upset if I thought of them.

But I think that's it.

You know he moved
the building to concrete and

I know because we're working on
the New York Post National Guard for

a National Library Athens right now which
is just about to start construction and

we experienced the same thing because
we were actually developing the entire

building with stone cladding it was
a very monumental stone building and

half way through the design process.

Fortunately earlier for us because
Kimball I think switched to concrete.

And he had a very strong desire to
express concrete work with concrete and

explore concrete that.

Your course also went the same way.

Instead of.

I think you just felt it was actually
more contemporary and more serious.

So here's the concrete mockups.

You're seeking a kind of
perfection in the fin.

And eventually the actual form work
designed it's all in the form of design.

And so all the interior walls
everything is going to be.

Architecture exposed concrete
with the same obsessive.

Look at the top points for the form work.

The control joints for the poor lines
board forming for the different pores

very tight quality control on
that's what you see manager.

So the next question is there
are mana crystalline photovoltaic So

now if this was done to say.

Should we use P.B.S. And the answer is yes
you're building a horizontal glass roof so

it's not a question about the huge money
it's a question about just saying I want

an offset for my energy so it's
investing in the Peaveys made sense and

they are of course tied
into the dynamic loop or

system they can be optimized angle.

If you wish.

And here's basically kind of
a mark of detail of the P.V.

system there's a kind of.

Series of want to crystalline cells
into the laminated P.V. array.

We're also doing a P.V. array on the New
Yorker's project which has a one point

five megawatt photovoltaic sunshade for
the whole building.

It's quite big hundred meters
by one hundred meters.

So here in the end it developed
in a different way which is

you have you have some lemonade a glass
louvers over certain public areas but

in the gallery spaces you actually
have a limited glass P.V.

integrated into the actual extruded
dynamic louver on the roof system.

And you can see they're all basically
organized together with a series of chain

drives that are all interlocking see
basically just drive from one location and

they all shift in tandem.

So the performance mark on the glass here
is actually quite monumental it's like

seven and a half meters high.

For a panel.

Not quite as high as the apple Q But
big enough and this is the is T M E three

thirty one performance mock up
with the airplane engine test.

OK next project.

So this is a much prefer sequence I know
there's only twenty eight images of it.

This.
This is this is the work of Georgia Tech.

So I just want to give a carload here
to your alarms they're working at front

who just coke and
the bell both did this job.

Now my partner Michael Ross was leading
this job he gave a talk here last fall and

he might have presented some of this and
I'm going to show it to you because you

may not see it before and certainly
may not have seen it finished and.

I spoke with Florian for a night in Berg
who is the architect along with his wife

Jane do you today just asking him about
the origins of the project I just want

to be clear because the questions about
how these things come about is funny.

So my first kind of
provocation is is this kind

of like woven tension chainmail
part of Jing and Florian's.

You know is it part of their work
is it who they are where they

destined to actually do this particular
building in this particular place

like one of the circumstances
that rise to this.

Well sometimes it's just.

You know it's it's random now.

Florian as you may or

may not know was a project architect with
initials our for the Toledo Museum of Art.

So there's an initial generalize concern
that he acquired with the question about.

But the kind of legibility of this kind
of interstitial space that's essentially

nonfunctioning with sort
of essentially a post.

Baroque sort of idea where all of
the space between the walls of

two little museums of course architectural
space but it's not course accessible.

There's also he's done the new
Museum of Contemporary Art

along with many other people.

Of course.

And then they established their
own firm they they did the P.S.

one installation with the polls in
the balls in the nets and stuff and

you saw that but they've been kind
of rising in the cultural world

in terms of architects on the radar for
doing these kind of.

Institutions and so through a kind of
network of referrals the cook to a gallery

identified them invited them for
discussions interviews and so forth and

they eventually got the commission
to do this one room gallery.

There is a basement and
there's also an entry and so

forth but Florian told me that there
was a building on the site there

was actually an existing block building
and their task was actually to rescan it.

Just asked to rebrand the building
not even to actually design it.

But as they got involved in the kind

of analysis of the curatorial
needs of the gallery owners.

They have different other buildings
in the same cluster of buildings

that have different X. Y. Z.

proportions to handle certain kinds of art
and they needed a space that had a certain

verticality to handle incoming
exhibitions and temporary works.

So when they look at the kind of X. Y. Z.

that this building wanted to do
it was not the existing building.

And so

it was determined that actually they would
knock the building down and rebuild it.

So the block in the middle comes
from saying I have to work

within the zoning setback and
then I need to maximize the height to get

the function of the gallery space of
the block designs itself as an X. Y.

Z. proportion that can sit inside the
zoning on below but this particular site.

However the stretch metal now actually.

Finds its origins in
the idea of a reclining

and then it is washed through certain
kind of contemporary concerns in

Korean art that Florian Jing
were interpreter.

And it also got washed through their
own concerns about Hoshi illegibility

space and there's also a can text will
concern the scale of this neighborhood

is traditional Korean neighborhoods very
low skill ones two story building and

there was a concern that the essential
block which was the gallery that was

needed would just be too
rough to singular and so they

said well let's actually use that idea
about this kind of secondary skin that

conforms to the zoning on below tightens
its way around the building and stretches

out to the edge of the site in order to
soften the appearance of the building so

it has no other functional role except
as a kind of architectural foil.

So.

Michael and Jeff and we're developing

the building in tandem with them because
we're on kind of at the beginning and

the idea of this kind of chain mail evolve
you know people look at the Cambridge

metals DK The woven mesh is there's
lots of woven types of metals out there.

But there's not that many that can
handle double curvature very easily and

there's not that many to have the kind
of specular beautiful quality of

these kind of woven chainmail links that
of course are circular and section and

circular in elevation and so
the way light plays on that surface

is very special and very intentional and
it has a huge amount of transparency and

one axis and becomes actually
opaque in the other axis and so

the changing of the building is highly
variable as you actually walk across.

Now this leads into another kind of
question of agenda vote Labor and

architecture in the value of work and
so forth which I won't get into now.

But given that this chainmail is of course
individual links that are hand welded.

And then tumble polished there's really
only one way to do this which is by hand.

And Jeff and I haven't actually recently
authored a paper which got accepted for

presentation in Paris a few weeks ago.

Vance geometry workshop.

And they are the author of essentially
customized software tools for

doing both iterative.

Structural analysis on
the tension mash and

on the kind of relaxation of
the geometry how it actually would work

physically as it gets stretched in
one axis and stretch in another axis.

As you can see here.

And then eventually the kind of whole
question about how to actually cure and

make it so is finding out how do
you make it was such a tricky thing

as you can't just call up
any current will contract or

a metal fabricator to do this so
through various relations and referrals.

Mike identified a village in and

high a province in China which basically
is the village of welded Rod fabrication.

That's what they do and
so they went there and

basically made deals to build mock ups and
to customize densities and

to test various interation and
as they built mock ups they fed all

that information back into the digital
models until they actually got a design

that worked and then the question was like
How do you actually prefabricated this.

And they actually prefabricated it
in panels as kind of described here

essentially they're woven lines of fabric.

But of course the linkage counting
every individual line may be unique.

Depending on the degree of
double curvature that have so

even mapping out the definition
of where all those circles

are was a nice process which
then had to be mapped out to

the people in this village who
are actually hand stitching this together.

Remember.

As you close the.

Do you have to stitch it between
the other ones as you go.

So you're actually stitching and welding
stitching and welding stitching and

welding in a kind of iterative process
which is kind of crazy you think.

But the labor involved to do this.

So Mike took responsibility of actually
being the supplier and so our company

basically managed the entire fabrication
digital definition of this whole

thing which is law a century run by Evan
Lavelle who's now living in Hong Kong.

And I hear some of the markups that
were built in China and of course they

had to be hand stitched on site as well in
order to ensure the kind of continuity so

there is a kind of labor component
by the Korean installers as well.

And so here's a panel map for

the actual panels and
then the installation so check this.

So the balancing being
here with the pic line and

then you've got these spreaders that
basically ensure that the fabric can

actually be stitched from point to point
I mean very direct kind of obvious but

you know really until you
get into the process.

You really just don't know.

And so here is the spring
loaded anchors at the top.

So these are obviously all tension up
after the fact to induce incremental

tensioning in a kind of cycle as
you go and then the final building.

So next project another
kind of strange chain mail.

This is a whole other kind of story
about origination if you would.

How do you rush it has
good cultural currency

in this part of the world which is of
the Darby and he and his wife the Zan.

Were working on this forty storey strata

tower which is the tackler
twisted tower which was ill.

Faded and got killed in the recession.

At the same time though the guy's
Island Formula One race truck was

actually being developed and
there was a kind of.

Fairly banal hotel that was being
developed by a different architect they

got fired the shake stepped in and

basically said I need
something spectacular.

So the developers of the hotel are saying
well look you know you're the revenue

model for this particular site etc
doesn't actually support spectacular.

So there was a deal made to have
that kind of underwritten by

the shake and the bridge show that
you see is paid by one party and

the rest of the building is
actually funded by another party.

So there was a competition and the base
plan of the building the two ellipses

was largely established already in
the course of for the racetrack of course

running through and around and under
the building was also part of the brief.

So they won a century by developing
just a beautiful design for

this incredible kind of
grid shell structure which

was justified technically as
having a kind of micro well as

creating a microcosm attic environment
which in the end turned out to be true.

Because the building is actually
surrounded by water on three sides and

when the heat builds up underneath
the glass the glass is all permeable and

it's all open at the top it actually
induces a stack of fact and

all the hot air actually rises and
cool air gets drawn across the water and

actually comes up in the terraces of the
top of the building the balconies always

have a slightly cool breeze relative
to the Avatar the environment and

this is an extraordinary
expensive way to achieve that.

So you know I can't recommend it.

Everyone but it's what was its real and
if it works.

Of course the entire process after that
is about the team is basically saying

we have twenty two months to build this
entire building twenty two months would

be a cost instruction schedule without
the design phase and the design for.

It would at least be fifteen to eighteen
months to make the building of this

complex of buildings actually
a million square feet.

So now you're basically taking
a construction schedule superimposing it

onto a design schedule and saying.

So to you.

What does that look like.

And the fact that you can actually achieve
it successfully with pretty decent quality

demonstrates to people
that it can be done.

And once it can be done.

It becomes a bit of a problem for us all
because the idea of a kind of a normalized

sequential design process starts to go out
the window and then we used to see things

that were just like design phases
construction phases with getting in.

You know close out at the end and
of course now it's pretty much.

I mean when I work on facades no one goes
through construction documents anyone

understand that we're going to do a design
development we're going to work through

collaborative mock ups with contractors
never going to some sort of negotiated or

tender bid phase so C.D.S..

Now for the facades is very ambiguous.

So the process went like
that on this project.

It went like that.

And now.

As soon as that happened
as soon as someone said go.

It was quite exciting because the shake
of course said Do what you need to

do get the right team in
place we were already working

on the project with the thousand toad so
we were hired and then.

You know Tookie who's a base
building engineer was already on and

then we had like Burgerman
doing the grid shell structure

Arab lighting do the integrated
lighting we had.

Wagner bureaus specials bridge all
contractor on from day one and

then we had Gardner
tracker on three months

afterwards we had Gary technologies doing
the kind of integrated model management.

We had air a bridge engineering
to the link bridge structure

between the two buildings.

You know and there's like multiple other
consultants who are actually involved

in this project is just like and I want
to work on actually is very good kind of

memory of the process because it was so

results focused that there was kind
of like no time for anything else.

Of course on site that created.

Norma's amount of tension there was lots
of yelling and screaming and there were

threats and general like you know if
you don't perform with a kick you off

the side cetera et cetera et cetera but
at the end of the day I mean you can only

expect that kind of like a performance
oriented kind of tense environment.

So what you're looking at
here is a rationalization

the panels the glass panels which

eventually the conclusion was that all
five thousand panel should be unique.

But you say what's rationalize where
there's a lot rationalized the curtain

the aluminum frames that support these
valves are actually rationalized into four

different sizes the radius is row
harmonized that one precise radius and

of course all the quadrilateral is
with the same radius that up to three

hundred sixty degrees.

So you can make the corner out
of an individual for donut and

then you can slice into four pieces
fragmented connected with extrusions and

as long as you're extrusion
cutting was all C.N.C.

controlled and the whole digital
model could export all the X.

Y. Z. kind of coordinates for every piece
which was what happened on this job.

Then you can actually meet those kind
of schedules with NASCAR's migration

they're going to work in an integrated
way often doesn't work out that way but

they did like this drawing because this is
a very technology generated drawing which

is just a tackler what you're looking at
here is the normal angle of the individual

that sits at every node and
that is the orientation of focus.

So all the luminaires could actually
be oriented ahead of time and

then actually mounted It's not like
somebody is going up there conning

over the grid show and actually
adjusting each and every one of them.

So that's really the moral of
the story on this project is like

total integration total collaboration.

With a kind of fast track
design decision making process.

Where everyone kind of put on the table.

What do we need.

What do we need to actually get this done.

And then decisions got made.

Well in advance and
then basically downstream.

You just kind of live with
the consequences of whatever was decided

to locking in the foundations
up to three months

after that you just have to work to it.

One thing I'll point
out of this particular

panel which is remarkable is
the forging at the corner and

the extrusion are actually
welded together and

we only could do that because of
the subcontractor that was on board.

It was actually given the contract for
the glass panels well.

For convenience but

they have a steel welding culture in their
company as opposed to most current walking

tractors which like to cut
mill drill screw and silicone.

So in the end it's easier for
us to weld or we're like my God you know

because no curtain Wilkens on the right
one would ever proposed to weld aluminum

frames it actually laughed out of the room
but in this case that's actually what

happened but it's so smart because these
panels can expand thermally in every axis.

They're close they're not going to
have corrosion in all the seals.

They're not going to sand and
dust over time.

And so from a standpoint they're actually
much higher performance than they would

be otherwise and
not to mention they look way better.

We also double the angles of all

the panels as well to ensure that they'll
kind of didn't accumulate sand and.

Runoff.

And the glass panels and
selves are step planted at the edge

where the keeper at the edge is
actually designed flush with the glass.

So it's completely flush plain with.

Right.

Workshop drawings and what is
spectacular about these two drawings.

Every single panel can be defined in these
two drawings the all you need is an excel

sheet that drives the variables
on this particular drawing.

But those are like the four corner
forging which all have variables.

There's the panel which all has variables
all the aluminum extrusions and

the different technologies the corner for
drinks and then the typical details and

set ups with all their variables and
all the X. Y.

Z. work points are all defined and
tied back to sensory data sheets.

I think you can define every panel
in every struct in that five

thousand the panels in two drawings and
an X.L. sheet.

That's efficient.

So here's one of those corner for
doing this with those donuts look like.

So you just order them like this and then
you basically live slice them apart label

them and then you do some five axis
milling to mill of the weld lines and

then you basically assemble them all
together grind them smooth and paint them.

And then the installation.

So the good job is actually panelized
it was actually built in kind of pre

welded frames that were stuck
on scaffold on the building.

EROS stitched together with welded
panels on site and then at the end when

the whole structure was in place the loads
were released onto their foundations.

And of course this is
the structural glass wall

that looks out on to the truck
in the bar in the bridge.

Pretty nice and apparently I'm
told that we engineered this

horizontal laminated glass joint to
resist the impact of the flying Weil.

You know that.

Anyway you get the gist of it.

Is the terms of top.

It's really nice.

Even making these double
curved corner cladding panels.

A lot of work radius corners
double curved panels.

A lot of rationalization of study.

So just a couple more things here and
we need to wrap up so.

This is a toll facade that
we designed in Singapore

which we were awarded to by competition.

Basically it's a kind of
under lading curve glass wall

using as the baseline idea that we
would basically reject the kind of

super graphic superimposed more a that's
been championed by Janay oaky and

can we go in and others who've been
doing lots of work for the overtone and

to just invest in what we consider
to be their brand which was like

the invested artists artisan
all quality of the work

and to then achieve all of
the kind of texture and

live in our city through the pure
manipulation of one material.

So the idea is could you use glass
only without printing without

printed interlinear as with prints and
other things they actually start creating

something that was synonymous with their
brand was also one of the first curved

lease lines that they
had ever accepted and so

that was actually quite tricky for them so
they they bought into the idea and

one of the other reasons I think why
the except that it was they had to her.

The terms of the competition execute the
final open store within twelve months of

the competition day which is
incredibly difficult to achieve for

a fast track custom retail project so.

At the beginning of
the competition we basically said

these are the processes we want to use we
want to use LAMP textured curved glass

laminated with an acrylic interlinear.

As a kind of a resin based acrylic.

And we want to hang these panels
in a kind of vertical axis

with the frame was horizontal.

And we want to can do
a continuous underlaid ing line

where the developed curve of the panel is
always exactly nine hundred millimeters

which was the limits of the OTHER THAN of
the people that we wanted to do the job.

So the job we want to do is with Fusion
glass in the U.K. because they're the only

glass company that has a combination
of artist and all skill.

Plus industrial scale production that they
could actually meet a kind of schedule.

So we included all of that in
the in the actual competition

briefly give them a little
global map of how we saw it.

Sourcing.

And we've in your research.

Of course on how all the producers
projects in Asia which is

they give seventy five percent of the work
to garden and they get twenty five percent

of the work and D.M. and
we said we want gardener to do the job.

And they're like how presumptuous of you
to be you know how we're going to buy your

project but once we decided that
this drought would actually

go to US gardener was awarded the job and
negotiate a contract

gardener flew to London they pre-qualified
the glass supplier to vet what we could

do they basically started commissioning
exhilarated weathering tests on the U.V.

levitating glass and then fusion
glass was Commission to immediately

start producing about fifty samples of
glass that basically looked like this.

Studying various lending patterns
per you know texturing pattern

sand patterns occasion and
within about three months we had a full

scale lighting mock up to
test the thesis which was.

Could graze lighting which was the only
light source that we could have in this

geometrical configuration we can't have
full lighting or interior floodlighting or

anything could actually graze the
horizontal lenses that were being cast or

slammed into the actual glass to
generate this kind of optical quality

because we knew from other projects where
we've been doing fusion textured glass

that we wanted something that
had a kind of ambiguous linen

like quality where it began to kind of our
slate between glass and some other kind of

material Woody and and that's really
what our focus was and then the curving

was all about generating a sort of
anthropomorphic scale to the glassware.

From a distance.

You know you have a kind of a fish
allergy to the front of the building and

then when you actually come up
close to three dimensionality of

begins to kind of encapsulate you and

it has a kind of pleasure of kind
of old world curvy trains that you.

You know enjoyed so much kind of
going into one store fronts and

that kind of classic quality was
appreciated by all of these so

then they commissioned a five meter
wide by eleven meter high skill

to prototype is not for
performance testing is for

visual testing and for lighting and first
setting the curtains on the inside and

then all of these elements
here are part of the Bible.

It's actually a standard
set of details and

you negotiate with them how to integrate
them into the language of your facade

because there's not a lot of work to do.

Figured out.

But look at these images I mean
the quality of this glass now

is just so strange.

I mean you say is that a coating is
that printing concrete I mean what is

that this looks like this
panel here looks like steel.

So we understand it's pretty
broken it's quite indulgent and

it's going to go only it's the most
expensive facade of the ever built.

Twelve hundred US dollars a square foot.

Square foot.

Yeah.

Now.

The chairman of the car so told me it was

the most expensive saw that ever built and
I did my research I had a time and

I said it's the same cost per
square foot as one of their scars.

He was nonplussed.

And then I understood they
basically earned in the first three

months enough revenue to pay for
the entire on blue.

And it's the highest grossing.

Ovi facade.

You know in the world
our store in the world.

So powers of handbags.

But after this they give us more work.

So we did a really crazy million dollar
staircase for them which I want to show

you because it's too indulgent
because I lose all credibility.

Because we were the architect for
it and we'd joined it and

then subsequent to that we actually
were commissioned to do five stores for

one of their subsidiary
companies called D.F.S.

gallery and Asia who are in
the process of rebranding themselves

from a kind of middle tier retailer to
something more like Harry been Dells or

Saks Fifth Avenue and so we've a lot of
that's kind of confidential right now but

we're we're building out an entire
branding strategy with all be made.

Their their their branding consultants
to create totally different facades all

based on a generalized concept which

there's hope for them under construction
right now but more on that later.

This is quite exciting.

This is the new Miami Art Museum that

we're working on with
her talking tomorrow.

Note this drawing this
is the kind of basis.

It is the eighteen foot storm surge here.

So no art.

Very sensible.

So the whole building is
basically built on puberty and.

Christine Binswanger the partner in charge
of this we work with her on the walker at

center and her obsession on this
project was basically concrete.

So the entire building is made out of
concrete the breeze a laser concrete

the walls are sure well architectural
concrete the deck planking is precarious

concrete and
of course the facade is glass.

But the walls of the glass walls that
we have are supported by concrete.

Going to move through this to get
you to the curtain more millions.

Were finally happy we actually have been
pushing to do kind of a high strength

fiber reinforced concrete facade
system for a long long time.

These are just precedents and of course
they learned a lot doing concrete.

On their project in Miami.

Prior to our involvement.

But we're very excited to engage
the idea of doing concrete millions.

So we're using ductile.

And the the contractor is actually
Sealy is mostly glass aluminum and

still the same contract is that in
the Seattle library with us and

they won this job taking under
their wing the entire prototype and

testing process for
fiber concrete mullions.

To hold up their glasses them.

And this is the largest glass and million
combination that has been missile impact

tested to Dade county standards and so

this is a heavy laminated glass
panel with a very strong million.

This is our kind of prior effort we
actually prototyped a fiber concrete

unitized systems for a high rise building
in Louisville Kentucky with Rex which

got pretty far along but
it eventually did not get built.

So this was the one that's actually been.

Successful.

So these are the concrete
million profiles.

Basically with a keeper on the outside for
double laminated glass using S.G.P.

interlinear as.

Is the casting process.

This is the market.

I think the glass panels here
are approximately sixteen feet tall and

eight feet wide.

So basically machine ferals are cast into
the blind side of it for the glazing

attachment and then basically you know
steel anchors are attached and cast into.

Anchors put into the end
terminations of the system.

So here's the missile impact resting
Reg big compressed air cylinder with

the missile here it's basically a long
tube in a projectile basically replicates

a palm tree going one hundred forty
miles an hour into the center of

the piece of glass and to the side of the
Molly in order to determine how they work.

Now the standard of failure here for

this one was actually rather high because
it's not just about the first impact it's

about subsequent impacts because they're
basically there's a lot of focus on this.

Not just for humans.

So if you wish courses the priority but
also for

the preservation integrity of
the artwork and these panels had all

passed a very high benchmark
performance in order that the insurance

companies would actually continue to
insure artwork exhibit it in those spaces.

So it all comes down to insurance.

But we all understand that ahead of time
and that's really the nature of the game.

It's kind of what underpins
all of this work and

the kind of never will cost
that's associated with it.

We love blowing this stuff up.

It's great.

I missed that one market for you.

I'm sorry we actually have
a blast markup of the.

Trying to Central Television which was
done on a People's Liberation Army base.

None of us could attended except for
one guy in my office who happen to be

a Chinese national So he was permitted
to enter the base and documented.

Anyway so

Miami are museums pretty far along you
can see how advanced it is right now.

Structures.

This is just last month.

Actually we're getting glass on site and
concrete millions and

the rest the building is actually quite
spectacular as we were involved in all

the other aspects but the kind of
investigations into multi form types

of concrete whether it's again
precarious tees or sure walls or

what have you is really quite
a rock in this building.

So I'm really looking for
to go and see that when it's open.

So I'm going to stop there and expressed
my thanks for your attention and so.

Good night. You know. To a.